The Crooked Stamper's Most Excellent Day

[Warning: long, rambling post.]

I took today off from work to catch up on life. Everyone needs these days once in a while, and when, like me, you spend your weekends preparing for and hosting several workshops, it's not like anything ELSE gets done, ya know? So I took today off, and I actually got some of the stuff done that I'd planned. Amazing.

First, since I was up until after midnight last night, even though my body woke up before 6 am today out of sheer habit, I put it back to bed and slept in a bit. After I got up, I cleaned up from the workshops, put away everything including the table, went to the MVA Express office to renew my driver's license (more on that in a sec), stopped at the quilt store to see about getting some scissors sharpened (more on that in a sec), got some petrol for the vehicle, got the vehicle washed (it is a different color now than I remember ...), got lunch at Checker's (never been, always wanted to go, finally did), and then ... are you ready for this? ... I made ... my January birthday cards! No kidding!!!! Well, I made one of them, and the rest are all cut up and ready to assemble.

About the MVA driver's license experience. I was in and out in under 10 minutes, I kid you not. I don't know how I timed that one, but there are no complaints here! I am now the proud owner of a hideous photo of myself that I'll have to show people for another 5 years.

Based on a suggestion from one of my customers last night, I stopped at the quilt store today to see about getting my scissors sharpened. I put all of my scissors into a bag (I have 13 pair of snips and 4 pair of the larger versions. Yeah, that's a lot.) The guy esimated two weeks from .... uh, no thanks. I suppose I should have left a few pair behind. I just thought it would be easier to buy some more snips and designate them as ribbon-only snips. I am so lazy.

Checker's. I have never been to Checker's, as I rarely eat out, and when I do it is rarely fast food. But I had nowhere to be today, so I gave it a shot. When I pulled up to the drive-through (your only options are drive-through or stand outside to order and take away - no eat in) the place to order was a human being! NO KIDDING! I was so excited, and he was really nice, and it was the most pleasant drive-through and/or fast food experience I have had in many, many, many years. I will probably need to go back. And if everyone on the planet knew about that human being ordering person thing, it only serves to show you that I really do need to get out more.

On to my workshops. I have a few fun moments to share with you. Let me begin again by saying - again - that I love my customers. I love being a Demo and hosting these classes for people to come over and play. I love being the place people come to get away from life for a few hours. And I love that I can give them the opportunity to use their creativity and help each other and share and ... and ... I am going to get blubbery here in a moment, so I'll get to my point.

The fun moments I am going to mention were all with this card:

This was my sample, but I always leave the sets out to let people not only see what else comes in the set, but to also give them the chance to use a different stamp than I did. It's all about enabling the creative juices. I do not expect everyone to like every card I make, but if it gets them started thinking about what they could change to make it something they'd be willing to try, then my work is done.

The funny story. We were all moving right along and creating Sunday afternoon, when we heard, "Whoops, I've decapitated the deer." What a hoot! I suggested she just stamp and cut out another one, but she said, "I am not going to cut out those antlers again!", and really, who can blame her?! I thought we could piece him together, but the wound was still visible. So I got a piece of red twine from The Other Room, and we fashioned him a scarf, a-blowin' in the wind, and stuck it on with a rolled-up glue dot. Perfect!

And just to show you I do have real people who come over to play, you can see someone behind kitty over there on the left. Yes, kitty assumed her position as the resident coat warmer as soon as that coat hit the chair.

Back to the card. The person who made this version wanted to use the moose stamp instead of the deer, so she futzed around with the pieces and got them to fit. I think she liked the moose because the antlers were more scissor-friendly. Plus, she could pop up the antlers so the moose looked to be in front of the tree. But then in all the excitement, I offerred to get her the now-retired flocking to make the antlers fuzzy. Now before you turn me in for having a Bad Demo moment, let me say that this person, this person using a retired SU product, this person who has never in her entire lifetime purchased a set from Stampin' Up!, this person that was giddy with glee with the flocking and the moose, ordered the set on her way out. I rest my case. (Isn't her version of the card ever-so-much cuter than mine?)

Oh, but it gets better! This person, having overheard the moose glee at the other table, decided she needed to make a Woodland Creatures card, and she did BOTH the deer and the moose. Then she took it further by flocking the deer's antlers as well as the moose's antlers; aaaaaaaand, she flipped the paper over to the more muted pattern side so you focus more on the critters; aaaand, she went back to the penguin station and used the glitter on her snow; AND added the falling snow with the white gel pen. I think this is STINKIN' cute, and suitable for publication, even. I am just in love with it!

And lastly, if I have not already lost you, this is the January birthday card I made this afternoon. It's all Pacific Point blue except for the Kiwi scallops and Old Olive ribbon. I'll explain how I did those scallops in a separate post in a day or so.

Don't forget: you have until midnight tonight to Spot the Mistake and win something out of my stash!